Posted by stefl on May 8, 2008, at 21:10:27
I have been on every anti-depressant and mood stabilizer under the sun, over the last five years! (Is she bi-polar, depressed, anxiety, PTSD, OCD, etc, etc?!?!) For the past year or so, I have been on Effexor XR and honestly, it really worked pretty well for me. Except for the inevitable sexual side effects! After a while, it became quite a problem, so I decided that it was not the right med for me. I consulted my dr, she gave me a plan to taper down, and said nothing about the hell I was about to enter! So I started to taper down, slowly. But that wasn't good enough!
I went from 150mg daily, down to 112.5 for 2wks, down to 75 for 2wks, 37.5 for 2wks, then dumped 1/2 of a 37.5 for another 2 wks (dr "forgot" that I was on XR & later said dumping regular effexor works, but not XR. DUH!) She then told me to discontinue last Thursday.
Last Friday I felt kinda yucky. Saturday I entered HELL! Dizzy, light headed, headache, nasuea- all to extremes. Sunday all worsened, migraine, plus heart palpatations started. All this plus the massive pain I've been in for weeks from my fibromyalga flaring up to the worst it's ever been, as soon as I started to taper down. SO the question then became, what to do after days of already enduring w/drawal hell, but potentially facing days, weeks, or months more of it?
Here's what dr said- go back on 37.5 of effexor XR for ten days. Day 1, start 5mg prozac. At DAY 4, go up to 10mg Prozac. At day 10, continue prozac & stop effexor. My ?'s are the following-
1)Is the prozac going to really help the w/d enough to make it worth backtracking with the effexor & trying again? and 2) I've also heard hellacious stories (though not as bad!) about people coming off prozac too! Is it worth taking the chance?I'm so torn about what to do! I know this was a really long post & I appreciate anyone who took time to read it & maybe pass along words of advice! Thank you!
poster:stefl
thread:828033
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/wdrawl/20080220/msgs/828033.html